Overcoming the Taboo of Miscarriage with Aspiring Student Midwife Steph

Miscarriage is becoming more present in the media and both medical and creative literature, but it’s still a subject that’s treated with awkwardness and silence.

Steph is an aspiring midwife who is undertaking an Open University degree in health medicine/biology while getting her life set up to be able to do midwifery placements. She’s a Mum of two.

She's also a member of the Secret Community For Midwives in The Making who recently shared some photos with us. She had recorded her miscarriage and her 8 week baby. You could sense her shock and sorrow – but also herawe of her body and her baby.

With her permission, I’ve shared her thoughts here with photos under a separate link*. These photos are sad and intimate, of course, but the anatomy and concept of this being what many women go through as they say goodbye to their baby, is beautiful.

‘I wanted to share these photos in the hope that they might be interesting and educational. I miscarried 2 nights ago. I knew it was happening as I had started spotting the day before and was referred to the EPU (Early Pregnancy Unit) for a scan the following morning.

The scan showed the baby, whose heart I had seen beating in an early scan, had sadly died at around 7.5/8 weeks. I should have been 11.5 weeks so it was a devastating blow.

As the day went on my body gradually prepared for what it needed to do as bleeding got heavier.

That evening I was lying on the sofa trying to ride out the cramping and lower back pain which I was now experiencing. My youngest started to stir over the monitor so I got up to go to her and as I began to stand up my PJ bottoms just filled with blood and clots. I told my husband to see to our little one while I tried to work out what to do. It was a little scary. I've miscarried before but never like this. I made it to the bathroom and let my trousers and pad drop to the floor. It was quite shocking and felt horrible. As my trousers dropped something also fell and landed slightly away from the rest of the clots and blood, as soon as I looked at it I knew what it was and I had passed the foetus still inside the sac. I knelt for a while while my body cleared out a bit more and cleaned up a bit and then went to the sac. It was strangely beautiful. Heart breaking and gut-wrenching, but so very perfect.

I picked it up and couldn't take my eyes off it. I was in a bathroom surrounded by and covered in blood and yet I was holding this beautiful tiny baby, still safely protected in its watery cushion.

I have had 4 losses but this is the only time I have been able to properly say goodbye. It has made it more raw and hit me harder than any of the others, but equally I feel immensely privileged.

Miscarriage carries a lot of stigma and is a very dark and lonely place for women who go through it. I hope these pictures show there is a beautiful, peaceful side to it as well.’

A huge thanks to Steph for sharing this experience of motherhood with us. We honour it.

My novel, which is coming out this year, explores termination of pregnancy through the eyes of a young student midwife, as based on many of your experiences. (Thanks if you helped by sharing with me). I wanted to address this topic in particular because despite one in four women having had an abortion, I’ve never read about the experience in a fictional book. And I’ve read a lot of books about women.

Sometimes childbearing experiences can be so complicated that you can’t class them as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. They just are. Like the snow flurries that have hit the UK this week, they are an act of nature and it’s us that assigns the meaning.

It's an isolated place to be though, if you can't share that meaning.

Steph’s ability to share helps to address the loneliness that can come with this kind of taboo topic.

I’d love to hear from you – have you experienced miscarriage or termination of pregnancy, or any other ‘taboo’ childbearing event? Have you been able to talk about it? What would have helped in terms of the care you received?

Leave a comment – and please let me and Steph know what you found most insightful about her post.

Much Love,

Ellie x

*We face tough decisions as moderators of the Secret Community. We never aim to censor anything but we’re aware part of our job is helping the community access information and experience in a way which doesn't overwhelm them with no warning. We asked Steph to add the images in the comments instead of in the main post which meant members would have a choice of whether to access the photos at home, when they had space to think about them, etc. (we're really thinking of the few members who might be experiencing infant loss right now).

Whether you agree or disagree with our decision, I think we can all praise Steph for sharing this so openly. We wanted to document her experiences in a permanent blog post here on Midwife Diaries.

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9 Responses

I’ve suffered a miscarriage and 2 ectopic pregnancies. Looking back reflectively, there was no support from the medical staff, just sorry there is no heart beat; the pregnancy didn’t implant in the right place; we’re going to remove your right tube as this is the second ectopic. After each event I was told, if thr bleeding gets heavier or clots ring us. The End….. Well for them may be, I live with it everyday, it’s so taboo, it’s almost like a dirty secret I rarley bring up. My husband and I almost split up at one point becauae we were both lost and devastated.

I experienced a miscarriage four years ago now. It inspired me to set up and run a miscarriage support group which I proudly run to this day. I have worked with women’s stories of miscarriage empowering a platform for their voices to be heard within my local health board. I am a couple months off qualifying as a midwife where I hope to continue to get women’s voices heard. I will never forget holding my tiny fourth child – she (just I feeling I have) has inspired so much in me, she’s my very special little gift x

I am so sorry for your recent miscarriage and I thank you for those pictures too.
I also had a miscarriage and when I did, I also had an intact sack come out into my hand.

Ten days prior to my 12 week scan I started to feel ‘normal’ , my nausea had passed I wasn’t feeling as tired or hormonal and thought (hoped) that maybe I was further along than I actually was and that could be why I felt this way.
I hadn’t ever experienced a miscarriage myself and all the ways I had heard how it happened, wasn’t how I was feeling. I had no bleeding, no cramping, no back pain etc.
So when my twelve week scan came about and the feeling in the back of my mind that they may not find a heartbeat was realised in the scan room. I was in shock.
I agreed with the midwife that I would like to go in to have baby removed as I couldn’t face it at home on my own. I had been carrying for 2 weeks after baby had died without my body reacting to this. I went in the following day for the pre op, ready for the following day, to have baby removed. With an immense fear of having a miscarriage without the support of any healthcare professionals.
I started to bleed the day after my scan.
My appointment the next day was for early in the morning and about 2 hours before I was due to go in I started to get contractions. I managed to get to the hospital in time to be taken to the nearest toilet ( with my husband who at this time was distraught) and the midwife placed the upside down cowboy hat thing in the toilet. As the contractions got stronger, baby came out into my hand, after a slight push, in its fully intact sack. It had filled my hand and although I was very calm and wasn’t emotional at this time I really didn’t want to look in case what I saw stayed with me in a bad way.
Although this was my initial reaction to it, in the midst of shock and grief I didn’t realise what was going on. I was going through the motions there, by having the placenta delivered in a side ward and then cleaned up and asked to take a few moments before leaving.
In this time I wasn’t given another option to see what my baby looked like ( I know it wouldn’t have looked like a fully grown baby) but it was my baby.
I had no idea where they took it, what they did with it and didn’t get a choice in any of this. To me it felt like a very run of the mill situation and a bit like I was on a production line, just one of many.
To me though it was my first miscarriage, I felt lost, confused, heart broken and also guilty for feeling all these things when I was ONLY 12 (10) weeks gone. It wasn’t to anyone else but me and my husband- classed as a baby.To us from the moment we found out, we envisaged our future with that baby. I felt immense loss of what was not to be.
I didn’t have any type of follow up, aftercare or support from anywhere but from my husband and it took me a long time to cope and then even try for another baby because of that overwhelming fear it would happen again.
We did go on to have another but it was five years later.
I do feel there is a real taboo around those who miscarry in the first or second trimester as to whether they feel comfortable to express their grief and not to feel like it isn’t as important in comparison to still births etc.
I still feel like this today.
Thank you so much for sharing, it resonated with me on a personal level.

Thank you so much Steph for sharing the photos, which are amazing to see. It is painful to say that I miscarried in another country whilst on holiday with my family, in a hotel room in the middle of the night, on the toilet. Due to the design of the toilet, the opportunity to see what came away was unfortunately gone forever. You are right to say it is a privilege to say a proper goodbye and is something that many women including me would have cherished, instead of the regret of a missed opportunity.

Ellie, thought you’d be interested to know that I’ve just read Marian Keyes latest book, The Break. That covers the story of an unwanted pregnancy in Ireland, and how the laws there meant the woman had to travel to the UK to have an abortion. Well written, just a sideline of the main story but written to be politically evocative I think. Xx

Dear Steph, thank you so much for sharing… yes although the taboo is beginning to be broken I think it is still so hard to talk about it in depth, the meanings and emotions which are so raw for all of us who have been through it… It was brave of you to share the pictures I thought as well, thank you I think these moments will help you so much on your midwifery journey xoxo